white hot spark

It is atmosphere that bears the the lash, that boundary burned to feathered ash with-in the fog. A line of fire,or inference, the shine worked into the sky. The breath of harsh particulates crashing into ice.The seamless transitions and the meaningful pauses. The smoked skin of vision, some candle that burns as a strike. The blaze upon the moment the rush towards dusk begun. The white hot spark at once extinguished, that place to hold the hands long gone.

Is memory the map or the disillusion? The marker on the white board, or the words that hold the weight. The thought that crossed that instant resurrected or reformed. How long to hold our hearts expression in impressions based on blackened pulp. How far to see, should you render the breath just right. Cold rooms and borrowed fingers. Sin abounds when the only language known is demands.

Early today I witnessed the star fall. It is still all I can do not to confess a wish. Cold fog, and I warm on your wild blue yonder. Ice bites my face and you shine away the night. Everything is only how each thing leads to another. A bite of light and the world was put on backwards, the fall exclaims the climb. The sun also rises, so goes the saying with the seen. Matter there and in an instant gone, while there are no bounds to all this untold absence. Everything thing placed so curt and careless, this single note again and again.

before the sun

Once before the sun came up the day began as rain. There were ripples in the road ways and ribbons on every windshield, the sky coming down in woes. Every trifle was a trial, every ghost the most. The words so thick it seemed a parody. The tangled feel of scene and sound, the rain dangling braids of gray. And all the wish, and all the want washed steadily away. The empty chimed its favorite curse while the water whispered and schemed. The dream is all but undone says this tide of secret bones.

So they chart the course of condensation, they paint the sky with eyes. The numbers gather and hone their suspicions. The words awash with reach and root. The tether of aprehension and the texture of unknown prospects. These haunted halls worn raw through work and care. These hopeful nets stretched across the deluge, almost running into someone they ought to know. The nuance all in the fret and breath, the press of the world that our limits allow. Forever this kiss of flesh and precipice. Just because I missed it, doesn't mean I do not know. That graceful placement, all the ways that saying might make it so.

I know the laspse and feel the phrasing. Like it was almost made to say. That strange malinger language insists at every edge, these licenses always the purient  conceit. It takes a cliff to ask a question, a tiger to truly disagree. The life that spontaneously generates, arising as much out of custom as out of skin. The adhesion of thoughts that exceed to the material enchantment. The spell that silks between us and all, this simple thing said aloud. We are the spell that comes from speaking. We are all the lies we hide.

do the math

I live in the land between the rains. I wait on the shores of receding dreams. Day to day I drift these soft extremes, the brittle teeth of the atmosphere, the broken hopes of the earth. The garbage truck and the dinner bell. The streets ring with the racket and the empty. Just as you begin to feel them, the moments up and flee. So we cross the vast expanses, name the rivers and count the stars. So we abide our islands, always mindful of every storm and sea.

It's alright to move along. It's okay to cut your losses. You just have to do the math to know I am done. The little withered portion is all that is probable. A few more passes, then all is dusk. You know that the victory left is in how slow you lose. All time and proselytizing, melted candles and dancing flames. The ritual induces the pattern, the shadows come into play. This is the known world at work. If it won't do, what is left but to find another?

Somewhere there is a sea of wings, Somewhere sleeps a broken heart. The world is all wailing and wonder, I know. The dry air here seals the ceremony. The shocks and starts, the small pleasures and tiny horrors that work their way through the cracks in sky and sense. It is all too much to take, the dull threats of the ones that play at playing for keeps. The strange laughter of the heart as it sees its end. The blank stare confesses as the song shows its colors. The dead eyed smiles that make every breath question and swear. Bound to lapse in imagination. Caught in the grip of this grand design, once counted, never reckoned again. I bide my time and watch the sky, my life always the next world away.

mind the time

The sky fills quick, the streets are drenched. How low the head, how heavy the heart. The rain applauds the spattered earth. The back aches so you take a bow, this burdensome deluge. This strange delight.

How we drown this side of winter. How we pace the boards  and play to the balcony. Once a poem, and then a prayer. The startled flavor of this sentence as we engage our eyes. Our repertoire blunt repetition and a talent for making due with cheap thrills. Every letter that invocation. Every word the promise kept.

The rain drums on in dim insistence. The rain stomps around outside and whispers through your walls. The ghosts of voices in the hollow from the thunder. The rumble of surprise when all the gods show up at once. A call to arms drowned like the moon, this kiss to set aside the calm. The rain falls down my stubborn refrain.

consolation

The rain moved from rumor to roof, this gray tide of sky  arriving as the night. The trees all sway and the wind chimes sing. That life full of golden moments is here, without any resounding brass or fanfare. That life pieced together from books and movies, the lasting magic you won't let go shows up as well. All night you tried to sleep, weeping in your pillow. All night you tried to sleep, losing count of crimes and sheep.

I can't escape this dark escarpment, I can't contain these throws of dusk. The mask becomes a map of your evasions, the mask a looking glass you won't stop walking through. The stories you share with your tethered heart, a lightning strike or secret spark. All the brightness there and gone, at once illuminating and obscuring this bitter business. This tiresome telling that they call a soul. Every lapse another favor, every torment a tell. It might be hard to find heaven, but it doesn't take a tracker to stir up a little hell.

I wait out the day for the rain to get here, them I sit outside to watch it as it falls. Night arrives in festive grays and black shadows, the sort of shabby entrance I usually make. I sit and smoke, thinking the kinds of thoughts that you can skin your knees on. I sit and smoke, watching the rain wash it all. The streets grow slick and the gutters brazen. Wanted or not, this is the life I am living. Asked for or not, all my blessing count as curses. This moment, and others lived quite like it. This is the spell cast like dice in the dark. The consolation of words ringing hollow, every sin comes home to roost.

engage

I know the words, though the moment's still uncertain. I read them again, though I only just let them go. The books on the shelf must know the feeling. Someone finds something, or someone finds nothing. Say the word and somebody will say it again. Recitation as if it is an answer. The repetition it takes to know you're lost. You miss the magic of these incantations, or you thieve the meaning from scraps and shards. You know how the words ring hollow. I can't even answer any questions of my own.

Spoken aloud, the poem escapes me. Spoken aloud, the spell is cast. Beggar's rags and gnawed on bones. Sounds that savor the flavor on your tongue. Sounds that ring out over rooftops and root through shabby rooms. Your breath entangled with cheap meaning, your heart savage, beating out each hope. The gleeful ignorance another unopened cupboard. The willful deception only favored in the flesh. Line by line, you look for reasons. I forget everything but the rhyme.

Gnats are resting on my sleeves. The sky is thick with threatening clouds. The rain slipped by for most of the day, a break here and there for some sunlight, a steady release until the storm relented. The sun falls in torn up sheets, the limbs of a tree, the front of a house. Traffic creeps past in ones and twos. The hour lingers in the air, cool air and chilled skin. A simple set of signifiers left on the line, word by word I waste away. The change is slow but unforgiving. The context shifts with your breathing. You mouth the meaning, then spit it out. Reading the problem as the plan, moving the reason every time you engage.

torch

I don't mind about the time-- it's always midnight somewhere. I don't mind about the hour-- another is always about to start. You may as well say it and see what that gets you. You might as well play the hand you're dealt. Enough of these strained translations, the foggy mornings and the bitter blues. Mosquitoes are all I attract, a buzzing near the ear, a bite upon my ankle. A cup of coffee while the sun goes down. Time running down like everybody else. The magic drags as well as draws. The torch burns on and on.

It catches up, the moment held too long. Always the past  taking its best shots. Always the camera off the mark. That seeming feeling that you never forget or find again. That whole heart wonder beaten down to blood and bone, the ache of an absence of something so sure and sweet. The empty that allows only one lost hope to assure the vastness of the lapse. The weight of matter and the myth of sin both kiss your open mouth, stacked so precarious upon the past. Your breath says something as it leaves you, a line you just can't catch.

The dusk descends and you linger. A notion in a wallet, a wish wearing a frame. The hollow touch of a camera flash, something always missing the mark. This desolate intent to smolder, this certain resonance of calm and sorrow, this little torch left lit. My life pretends it is something other than chance and remnants. My life a sound after dark down an empty hall. The sun is gone and you still shine, another world, another era. This limit only you could exceed, this moment I could never quite grasp. This fire that cannot reach its shine.